I have had occasions in the past to talk about the importance of Financial Education in our country. My extended stay in the village in the past few years and the sort of complaints I hear from especially young men, has sharpened my focus on the imperative of Financial Education to set many free from dependence on others in our country.
I not only want Financial Education to be a part of our school curriculum right from primary school to the university, I think it should also be made a compulsory subject at all the levels of our school system. No modern citizen, I think, should be without a good grounding in finance. That is dangerous for the citizen and also unhelpful to the nation’s peace and stability.
Let us devise a subject that will teach people how to make money and a way of measuring how well or not they are applying what they are learning. Anyone who fails will not graduate out of the schooling level that he is in. No one should be allowed to possess a degree in anything without a though knowledge of how to make money in a clean way and add value to the society that has given him or how birth.
So many appear ignorant about money- how to make it, how to grow it to become bigger and bigger and how, ultimately, to become self-sustaining without having to look up to ‘’wicked uncles’’, ‘’insensitive governments’’, ‘’usurious banks and other financial institutions’’ and ‘’unconcerned churches and mosques’’. I hear too many complaints about these ones.
Millions of Nigerian adults and youngsters who are bereft of the right knowledge think that the above-mentioned individuals and organizations who are supposed to be a supplementary supporters of people who are without means for various reasons, should be persons and institutions that should be blamed for their poverty or lack of means.
I want us to institute a finance education that will emphasize a spiritual law that the Apostle of the Living Faith Church Worldwide, Bishop David Oyedepo, has made into the mantra of the church: ‘’ You are absolutely responsible for the outcomes of your life’’. Every individual is absolutely responsible for who he becomes in life. He has absolutely no right to blame his failure on his parents, uncles, banks, church, mosque, friends and big men with whom they sometimes come in contact,
I have always wondered why in the eyes and mouths of those always needy young men and women, they never see or talk about good/kind, selfless and generous uncles. Are they always fated to have wicked, selfish and tight-fisted uncles or is it a fact of life that many uncles cannot themselves survive if they are good, selfless and open handed to the extent that many nephews and nieces expect them to be?
From my limited knowledge of life, many uncles who have the reputation of being kind, generous and selfless hardly have the means with which to help people. They live on the margins of society on the reputation that they are good. Many of them borrow or are heavily indebted to people to be able to be generous. In fact, some of them tell people that if they were as rich as some people else were, they will really be able to help many more people! This gets some of us confused. Which is better: to have a debtor as a kind uncle or one whose head is above the waters though he cannot help you to the extent you need him to?
I think the whole matter boils down to the place of the individual in being truly responsible for the outcomes of his life. No one is expected by even God to become a substitute to you. The best he can be to you is to be a supplement. He is to assist you, perhaps temporarily, so that you can gain your bearing. Once he achieves that for you, you should assume the pilot of your life. But many think it is even religious for you to be permanently dependant on uncles, governments and organizations. That is why the complaint about wicked, selfish and tight-fisted uncles is heard all over the world especially in Africa.
The fact that God gave each person on earth two hands, two legs, one mouth, one nose and two eyes and ears has perhaps not been sufficiently explained to man. God is fair to everyone. Why then the great disparity between those who have and those who do not that many others have to necessarily depend on others.
